Fashback To The Past

New Yorkers Create Their Own Little Brooklyn - In South Florida.

July 26, 1995|By LISA J. HURIASH Staff Writer

The pictures in Marvin and Sylvia Pincus' memories are as clear as if they'd happened yesterday.

... Those sweltering nights in the apartments above Livonia and Williams avenues in Brooklyn, long before buildings had air-conditioning. She'd have to go out on a fire escape, or up on a tar roof, just to sleep.

"We'd keep all the doors [and windows) open for cross-ventilation," said Sylvia Pincus, 62.

... Those lazy days on the streets, playing stickball on the corner, then sharing 25-cent kosher-turkey sandwiches at Grabstein's Deli down the block, said Marvin Pincus, 67.

It's been a half-century since then and much has changed.

A lot of folks from the old neighborhood are down here now. For example, the Pincuses live in Delray Beach.

But they're all still gathering at Grabstein's Deli - only this one's in Coral Springs.

Since the late 1980s, 30 couples from Delray Beach and Boca Raton, Coconut Creek and Tamarac, have gathered each month at the deli to nosh on sandwiches and shmooz with one other.

Sitting among his friends, Ralph "Moon" Montag, 59, of Coconut Creek, feels right at home.

After all, sitting in the new Grabstein's, which is owned by the same family, he can't help but be reminded of the old Grabstein's.

And his mind drifts back to the 1940s.

He's in the old Grabstein's, waiting for his pals in a special area that the deli owner has sectioned off.

And in walks his chum, Hy Zuloff, carrying a mop stick and offering a game of stickball.

After chattering about girls and school over sandwiches, the boys would move out of Grabstein's and into the street to play ball with 10 or so kids from the neighborhood.

"Hey, mister," they would yell to the truck drivers who would pull to the curb and upset the game. "Go park down the street. We're playing ball."

And they wouldn't stop until dark.

The older they got, the later they'd stay out. Maybe they'd play pool. Or they'd congregate at the local candy store or Mike's Barber Shop, which stayed open until 2 a.m.

Even when they grew up and moved away to bigger homes and better neighborhoods, they stayed friends. Many dated each other. Some married each other.

They still tried to keep in touch with each other. Through word of mouth, those who moved to South Florida caught up with each other.

And it perhaps was inevitable that they'd end up gathering at Grabstein's. There, the owners still sections off an area for them.

The price of the sandwiches has changed in 50 years. But the conversation hasn't.

"We still sit around and shmooz," Montag said.

They talk about their old Jewish and Italian neighborhoods. The day trips to Coney Island. And their old friends, many of whom became famous, such as actor Danny Kaye and singer Steve Lawrence.

They recall how delivery men would bring bottles of milk, loaves of bread, and blocks of ice. And how a movie cost just 10 cents.

To get money for a movie, they'd scour the neighborhood looking for discarded milk bottles - valued at 3 cents each when turned in to the local grocer. Typically, they'd find three bottles each, then run home and plead with their mothers for the last penny.

"We had no money, but it was the happiest time of my life," said Marvin Pincus.

Physically returning to Brooklyn now is emotionally painful. Even a little dangerous, they say. Families don't leave their doors and windows wide open at night anymore. Instead, they put alarms on doors, and bars on windows.